And you'll be pleased to hear one Richard Bacon, leading movie reviewer for The People, has got a front row seat for the ceremony. That seat is in my London-based mews house, courtesy of Sky Movies 1, who are televising it directly into my front room.

A lot of people have criticised the slightly worthy nature of the nominated movies this year, but I don't agree with them - after all, no one wants to see Date Movie taking Best Picture.

It will clearly be a good year for Broke-back Mountain, the gay cowboy movie, which if you've not seen, is well worth a trip to the Multiplex.

I've been thinking about making a sequel about gay cowboy builders, called Tarmac Mountain, where you hand over money for a ticket, but the film never actually gets started.

All the good movies have come out in time for consideration at the Academy Awards, which means the stuff that comes out this month tends to have no real competition.

So you get a lot of small-budget, independent or plain rubbish films, as the competition isn't so strong. They've got more of a chance of being noticed, reviewed and selling a couple of tickets.

But The Proposition deserves to do well. It's not a gay cowboy movie, it's a Victorian Australian Western, written by the Australian musician Nick Cave. In the Australian outback in the 1880s, the three Burns brothers - Charlie, Mike and Arthur - are the most brutal crims around.

As Irishmen, they aren't keen on the Englishmen who want to bring law and order to this uncivilised part of the Empire.

When older brother Arthur (Danny Huston - the son of legendary director John, who ou may have seen recently in The Constant Gardener) goes too far with his savagery Charlie (the excel-, lent Guy Pearce) thinks it might be best if he leaves the gang, for the sake of their more sensitive brother Mike (Richard Wilson - I don't believe it! No, it's not that one. Shame.)

The only problem is the younger brothers end up getting caught by the new English copper in town, Captain Stanley (played brilliantly by Ray Winstone - has he ever turned in a bad performance?).

Gallows

He offers a deal - if Charlie can track down and kill his older brother, then Mike will be spared from the gallows.

Guy Pearce is just great. Even though he was excellent in LA Confidential and amazing in Memento, he's destined to be forever remembered, first and foremost, for playing Mike in Neighbours who went out with 'plain' Jane (she wasn't plain it turns out, she was fit as...).

He produces as compelling a turn in The Proposition as he's ever done before, something pretty much true of all the cast (including a great cameo by John Hurt as bounty hunter Jellon Lamb - he's one of the greatest actors the UK's ever produced, but he's never quite had the role to make us appreciate him enough).

It's not a perfect movie. The characters aren't that compelling, some of the writing's a bit laborious, and the violence is madly over the top. But if you go in not expecting a masterpiece, you'll enjoy it.